Keep enjoying the outdoors this winter with these great ideas for winter- themed nature walks for children and families.
8 Winter-themed nature walks
Nature walks with children connect us to our planet, our neighbourhood, and to each other.
Try these easy nature walk ideas for families and enjoy the great outdoors.
You really don’t need any expensive kit to get out and enjoy nature, but the right clothes make a big difference. There’s a saying, in Norway I think, that goes; There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing. I have definitely found that the right clothes make such a difference to our walks. If we’re (I’m!) warm in winter, we stay out longer more happily.
Our winter clothing kit includes wearing layers, warm coats, sturdy walking boots topped up regularly with waterproof spray, warm hats, and gloves
A flask of hot chocolate is wonderful on winter walks, and you might also take a kit basket, with notebooks/nature journals; pens and watercolour paint tins; binoculars; ID books for birds, bugs and plants; and a magnifying glass
Often we just head out, walk, and enjoy what we see, but sometimes we have a special theme to our nature walks, to focus in on a particular aspect of what we might find.
Nature study activities for winter
Try one of these themed ideas this winter:
:: Signs of the Seasons Walk: look out for the first signs of winter
:: Bird Watching Walk: focus in on the birds that you see, trying to identify them, watching their behaviour
:: Footprints Walk: look for tracks – this one is great on a snowy
:: Sense of Hearing Walk – what does winter sound like?
:: Sense of Touch Walk– how does winter feel?
:: Star Walk: take a night time walk and look up at the sky, see which constellations are visible
:: Moon Walk: head out and take a walk by moonlight. You can time this with a full moon, or take several walks through the month to observe the phases of the moon
:: Dawn Walk: get up early and head out to see the sunrise. This is best for winter months as you won’t have to get up quite so early!
Head out and explore the new season! Use this autumn nature walk treasure hunt printable as your fall nature spotters guide.
Autumn nature walk treasure hunt printable
This pretty printable will turn your autumn nature walk into a fall treasure hunt.
It invites children to notice the changing elements of the season and to connect with the world around them.
The nature walk lets you make the outdoors your classroom, with prompts to read, write, and draw.
Autumn nature walk ideas
Nature walks are at the heart of my Seasons School nature study resources and of our family life. Nothing calms us, re-charges us, and connects us with our planet more than heading outdoors and walking.
You don’t always need a special theme for your walk – just get your kids out there! But having a theme or a focus can help kids to engage more with what’s around them, and gets them to look more closely at what nature offers.
Use my guide to easy nature walk ideas to enjoy getting out and about all year round, and try this autumn treasure hunt printable as part of your fall outdoor activities.
How to use the nature walk treasure hunt printable
Print the treasure hunt sheet (see below) on paper or card. There are two versions for UK and US English, so you’re covered whether you’re observing autumn or fall. (Simply select the page you want when you come to print.)
Give one copy to each child, or pair of kids, so they all have the guide to focus their walk.
I find it useful to pop the sheet on a clipboard to make it easy for children to write on.
You can also laminate them if you like to give you a sheet you can use again and again with wipeable markers.
You’ll need a pencil to complete the sheet, and adding coloured pens or pencils means your children will be able to add more detail to their drawings and colour in the illustrations.
An interactive printable
The autumn treasure hunt has been designed to be interactive! Children are given prompts to look closely at what’s around them: above and below, the big things and the little things.
There are spaces to draw your favourite leaf, and to press your paper against a tree trunk to take a bark rubbing . (You can use wax crayons for this.)
Children are invited to write, draw and tick off check boxes as they see and do things.
There’s a prompt to notice the changing colours of the leaves, and to look for seasonal berries and seeds – with space to add in any that are particular to your location.
And kids are encouraged to interact using their whole bodies: stamping through leaves, jumping over puddles, and snapping fallen twigs.
The Forest Classroom is the perfect beginner’s guide to running a successful forest school.
A forest classroom is a place of adventure, discovery, and imagination. It can also be a wonderful place to learn about math and science, explore art and crafts, and develop language and social skills.
This practical book will show you how to engage your children in fun and educational forest-school activities.
Suitable for forest school leaders, teachers, and parents with children aged 4 to 10, to learn in a forest, school nature area, local park or your own backyard.
Written by Cathy James, the author of The Garden Classroom.
Want to get your kids outdoors and connecting with nature?
You will be able to deliver lessons your children love, including:
Opening the session Closing the session Sit Spots Camp Fire Food Nature Journals Forest Walks Forest Treasure Hunts Parts of a Tree Tree Identification Learning about Clouds Forest Food Chains Foraging for: Wild Garlic Hawthorn
Elderberries Blackberries Forest Mandalas Nature Colour Wheel Flower and Leaf Crowns Leaf Printing Clay Faces Stone Cairns Leaf Symmetry Twig Weaving Story Stones 10 Things in Ten Minutes 19 Forest School Math and Literacy activities
The Forest Classroom is the perfect beginner’s guide to forest school.
It begins by guiding you through how to structure your forest classroom sessions. You’ll learn how to open your sessions, make everyone feel welcome, and set the tone for learning in this special classroom.
The activities work with children, and adults, of all ages but are created with children aged four to ten in mind. You can use them wherever you have access to nature, be that a forest, school nature area, a local park or your own back yard.
The book is filled with a wide variety of easy-to-implement, engaging activities that you can use with your children to explore the breadth of the traditional curriculum. You can add any combination of these activities to your provision, to suit the interests of your children, the time of year, and your timetable.
You’ll find plant ID guides, food chain lessons, and cloud investigations to explore science. Story stones and natural journaling will develop language skills, and there’s a variety of hands-on, forest-themed math activities. Leaf crowns, clay faces, twig weaving, and nature colour wheels use the forest to create art and crafts. The foraging guide and campfire food recipes will let you enjoy tasty forest treats. And the sit spots and forest mandalas invite you to find the calm, quite connections within yourself and this remarkable place.
The book is accompanied by a Printables folder full of all sorts of brilliant resources that you can print out and take to the forest with you. They’ll make it easy for you to run your forest classroom sessions, providing guides, prompts, and learning materials to share with your children.
Use this easy and practical guide to starting a forest school for childminders to bring more nature activities to your child care provision.
Forest school activities for childminders and day care
Offering forest school-style activities as part of your childminding services brings immense benefits to your children, their families, and to you and your business. It’s easy to implement forest school philosophy within your practice with a little thought and planning, using our Forest Classroom guide.
Let’s consider
:: the benefits to you as a childminder of offering forest school-style activities
:: the benefits of forest school for children in your care
:: how to start forest school activities as part of your provision
Our best-selling guide gives you over 40 lessons plans and 16 practical printable sets that you can use in your childminding provision whether you run forest school activities at home, in your garden, in your local park or nearby woodland.
The lessons are suitable for children aged 3 to 10 and are very practical for mixed-age groups. They cover a broad range of subjects including nature study, math, literacy, science, arts and crafts, and wellbeing.
The benefits of forest school activities for childminders
Childminders spend so much of our time taking care of others, but today, let’s start by considering ourselves first!
All the benefits that forest schools offer children are also going to be felt by you. You’ll be out in the fresh air, not being cooped up at home all day. You’ll increase your exercise – although you’ll be used to running around after your mindees all day, now you will also have the benefits of exercising outdoors, including the mood-boosting benefit of spending time in nature.
Using The Forest Classroom to get started means you’ll have a brand new project to interest you and give you a new challenge, but so much of the curriculum planning will have been done for you. It’ll give you a fresh start that’s supported and guided, so you can start out with confidence and feeling organised. You’ll gain new skills and experiences, and continue your professional development.
Offering forest school activities will also enhance your provision, making you a popular childminder with extra provision on offer to your customers.
Getting outdoors will also transform a bad day! Take your grouchy kids – or maybe sometimes grouchy you! – outdoors to cheer everyone up. Let the magic of fresh air transition you all to enjoying the day outside.
The benefits of forest school activities for children
Forest school gives children the opportunity to learn in very natural ways: through play, in connection to nature, and following their own curiosity.
Everything you want your children to learn can be taught outdoors, from team-work and nature study to math, science and language skills.
You can help children be less sedentary and more active by moving your day outdoors, using nature walks to build stamina and log climbing to build gross-motor skills
Children will learn about the planet, ecology, and environmental issues first hand, by being part of the outdoor world in direct connection with nature.
And they will benefit spiritually, emotionally and psychologically by spending time in nature. They’ll find community with your other mindees and understand their place in the global ecosystem. They’ll learn about risk-taking, team-work and build their confidence. And they’ll enjoy the ritual and rhythms of the natural year as they watch their outdoor classroom, and it’s inhabitants, change through the seasons.
The benefits of forest school activities for parents
We already know that good childminders have a big impact on a child’s whole family. Great provision in your childminding setting has follow-on positive effects at home for both children and families.
The better wellbeing and better language skills a child develops in you care means better communication and therefore fewer tantrums at home. The age-appropriate activities and enriched learning environment you provide leads to successful child development. Forest school will rocket boost this.
Time outdoors in a gentle and stimulating environment, bathing in nature, means a happier, healthier child, which in turn leads to happier, healthier families.
Families can also see an economic benefit: paying you just one set of fees rather than paying for child care and forest school classes. By offering forest school classes as part of your provision you’re giving parents one less thing to arrange, as you are taking care of this enrichment for them.
You’re also having a positive effect on your community, giving more accessibility to forest school enrichment. Families who may not otherwise be in a position to access forest school will have it provided by you.
How to start forest school activities as a childminder
To begin offering forest school as part of your childminding practice, start small and develop a plan. The Forest Classroom beginners’ guide will help you.
Decide whether you want to provide daily forest-school activities, to devote one day a week to learning outdoors, or whether you want to switch your entire provision to being nature-based. There’s no right or wrong option here, so pick what best suits you, your children and your circumstances.
You can start by offering ‘taster activities’ to introduce the outdoor classroom to your children and to see how you and they like it. You can go on nature walks, spend time in the forest/park, and introduce more natural materials to your setting – both indoors and outdoors. The Forest Classroom has a range of activities that are prefect to get started with, including a printable nature treasure hunt, themed walk ideas, and nature-based arts and crafts.
Then build your forest-school style curriculum that you can follow from home, that perfectly suits your provision. The Forest Classroom will show you how to plan and structure your forest school time, even giving you opening and closing ‘ceremonies’ to help your children transition in and out of the special nature time.
The beginners’ guide also has a wide range of lesson plans and activities that you can use all through the year, so you’ll have plenty of ideas to keep you organised and enjoying your forest school. The lessons cover a broad selection of subjects including math, science, literacy, play, arts and crafts and wellbeing, and you can mix and match them to create the exact outdoor curriculum that’s right for you.
The activities in The Forest Classroom are totally do-able – tried and tested by real children! Written by an Ofsted outstanding-rated childminder, the activities in the book are great for mixed age groups and when there is only one adult leading the provision.
A forest classroom is a place of adventure, discovery, and imagination. It can also be a wonderful place to learn about math and science, explore art and crafts, and develop language and social skills.
The Forest Classroomis a practical guide which will show you how to engage your children in fun and educational forest-school activities.
These ready-made forest school lesson plans are suitable for forest school leaders, teachers, childminders and parents with children aged 4 to 10, to learn in a forest, school nature area, local park or your own backyard.
Nature Explorers: Forest is the perfect way to add reading, writing, drawing and science to your forest adventures.
This interactive nature journal will get your children reading, writing, drawing and learning as they create a unique science book about their own forest.
The Nature Explorers: Forest learning journal is the ideal bridge between a classroom curriculum and the great outdoors. Your children will love learning the amazing animal facts, drawing, and playing with the animal cut-out models, while you will know the important early academics of reading fluency, comprehension, expanding vocabulary and writing skills are being developed alongside science, geography and art knowledge.
Nature Explorers: Forest is suitable for parents, teachers, and forest school leaders with children aged 5 to 10, to learn in a forest, school nature area, local park or your own backyard.
Want to build a reading, writing and science curriculum around nature, fresh air and your children’s love of animals?
This is the kit for you!
This is the perfect nature curriculum for children who have a special interest in animals, love drawing, being outdoors, and being active.
Every page of the Nature Explorers journal gives your children something interesting to read, draw, colour, write or make. You can use the whole book, in the given order or mix-and-match to suit you, alongside your time outdoors and know your children are developing their reading and writing fluency and their science knowledge, while still spending a childhood outdoors in the fresh air.
The journal uses a clear font for easy reading and black and white colours for easy printing. You can print as many copies as you need for your children – the whole book or individual pages – making it a resource you can use time and time again.
Your children are guided through the journal with question prompts and invitations to colour the beautiful, realistic animal illustrations which have been hand-drawn especially for Nature Explorers by artist Ruth Toner. Plenty of space is included in the journal for your children to add their own sketches, drawings, notes and writing, so they can create their own science book, based around their favourite animals and your local forest.
The Explorer Field Notes pages can be taken out with you as you go on a nature walk or spend time outdoors and are where your children can write notes and draw sketches of what they see. Back home they can research their findings and use the Forest Report pages to write up what they have learned, collecting these pages along with the rest of the journal’s resources to build their own science book.
The journal is also full of special animal feature pages, activity ideas, and art projects to try in the forest, plus quizzes and questions to consolidate their learning.
And your kids will love the two sets of animal cut-out models that are included: forest animals and bugs! They can colour them in, cut them out, and easily assemble them for play or to create model forest dioramas.
35+ nature journal pages, activities and printables
Your children can build their own science book as they read, draw, play and learn about:
What is a biome? Where are the forest biomes? Animal homes Building dens Bugs that live near them Building bug hotels Brown bears Woodlice Great spotted woodpeckers What is a tree? Tawny owls Foraging for: Wild Garlic Hawthorn
Elderberries Blackberries What is a food chain? Forest printmaking Red foxes Sit spots observations Red deer Grey wolves Forest collage art Eastern gray squirrels Siberian tigers Forest quizzes and questions Forest vocabulary
BONUS: printable journal pages, animal cards and animal cut-out models
Use the printable pages to build your own science book! Plus collect the first two sets of the Nature Explorers‘ Animal Cutouts models. Printables include:
A range of animal feature pages to read, learn amazing facts, colour in, and add your own illustrations
Explorer Field Notes pages to complete at home, in class or out in the forest to record your explorations
Forest Report pages to write and draw reports to build your own science book
Foraging guides including wild garlic, elderberry, blackberry, and hawthorn
A set of forest animal cards to colour, collect and play with
Owl, snail and tree templates for art projects
Quiz and question pages to recap your knowledge, add your own questions to, and to test others!
PLUS: collect the first two Nature Explorers Animal Cut-outs models: forest animals and bugs! Colour in, cut out and use your models for play, small worlds, and diorama displays.
You can buy just the Nature Explorers: Forest journal for $19.99 or get it half-price when you buy the Forest Bundle.
The Forest Bundle gives you both the Nature Explorers: Forest journal and our best-selling The Forest Classroom: a beginner’s guide to forest school for the combined price of $39.99 $29.98 – you save $10!
Book One: The Forest Classroom
a beginner’s guide to forest school
40+ lesson plans for activities you can combine to suit your needs
16 sets of printable lesson aides that make it so easy to run your sessions
a forest school planner to get you easily organised and useful guides to help you structure your session
for ages 4 – 10
Book Two: Nature Explorers: Forest
add reading, writing, drawing and science study to your forest time
35+ printable pages guide your children to create their own science book
learn about biomes, forests, trees, animals, plants, food chains, and more
PLUS: two sets of Animal Cut-Outs models – forest animals and bugs!
for ages 5 – 10
Get the BEST VALUE Forest Bundle now : half price offer!
This product is an ebook (electronic book), which means you will be sent a link by email which allows you to download the ebook and all the resources. You should save the ebook file to your computer or iPad and then either read it on screen or print some/all of the pages, as you prefer.
